Scattered Thoughts . . .

I captured a short video clip with audio of the carillon bell tower at Carillon Park in Dayton.   I've visited Carillon Park countless times but I've never captured any video clips of the bells which means that, until now, I've had no audio of this rather unique bell tower.  I suppose I've never thought about capturing video of the carillon because there is no visible movement from a distance and video is typically about movement.  I never really thought about capturing various video clips strictly for the audio, until now.   As I mentioned in one of my previous blog entries, we had a nice view of the carillon from our hotel balcony (photo above).  The carillon was sticking up among the trees in our view.   This carillon rings its bells four times a day, every day, for about a minute or two each time.  On special occasions, they also have concerts.   For months, Lukey and Kenzie heard Sheila and I talking about and getting exc...

The Wright brothers first had a printing shop in the late 1800s.  I have some print shop photos from our visit to Carillon Park and I'll share those in a future blog entry.  For now, this blog entry is focused on the bicycle shops of Dayton at the turn of last century.   However, I wanted to mention that the brothers had a print shop and published two Dayton newspapers before eventually getting into bicycles through the 1890s.  I mention this to show their experience with retail storefront spaces.  After printing and newspapers, they ventured into designing, manufacturing and selling bicycles.   During this time of making and selling bicycles, they moved from place to place in five different locations in Dayton.  They were at one of these locations so briefly that most historians don't include this location.  To be historically accurate, however, I believe it should be included even if they were there for only a matter of weeks.  Pe...

While we were staying in Dayton with Kenzie and Lukey back in June, we stayed at the Marriott Hotel at the University of Dayton.  This is a fairly new hotel...  actually, I don't think it was there the last time we were in Dayton...  so the hotel was clean.  In fact, the hotel was bursting at the seams with airshow participants when we arrived and it still seemed well organized and effectively managed.  In short, our stay at this hotel was very nice but not without a few little problems as one might expect during a long stay. We certainly have a few complaints just as we do with every hotel but I think our complaints here were quite minor by comparison.  For instance, it seems that all hotels have done away with daily housekeeping service even when all signage in the rooms indicate daily housekeeping service.  For instance, they have multiple signs telling you to put dirty towels on the floor of the bathroom if you want them replaced.  That would ...

On our recent trip to Ohio with two of our grandchildren, Kenzie and Lukey, we visited the US Air Force Museum twice.  On our first visit, we focused on walking around outside in the Memorial Park.   I have already written about our moment at the Wall of Honor in a previous blog entry so I won't write the whole story again here in this entry but this is one of the reasons we wanted to show the kids the Memorial Park...  a Data Plate in my name had been added to this 'Wall of Honor' in a ceremony a few years ago but the kids knew nothing about this honor.  When they noticed my name on this wall their eyes opened wide and mouths opened in shock.   We meandered around the Memorial Park for about an hour in the unbearable heat and humidity.  Fortunately, most of this park is under trees!  The monuments and memorials related to my career in the Air Force were pointed out and I offered a few very short and incomplete stories about these incidents...